Career Related Applications of Economics In Enrollment Management Matt Bogard Coordinator, Market Research Western Kentucky University

Background B.A. Economics, Minor Mathematics M.S. Agriculture emphasis in Applied Economics "The combination of quantitative training and applied work makes agricultural economics graduates an extremely well-prepared source of employees for private industry. That's why American Express has hired over 80 agricultural economists since 1990." - David Edwards, Vice President-International Risk Management, American Express “………Advances in computing and the greater availability of timely data through the Internet have created an arena which demands skilled statistical analysis, guided by economic reasoning and modeling.” Johns Hopkins University “Employees hired for their expertise with numbers or trained to recognize their importance are armed with the best evidence and the best quantitative tools. As a result, they make the best decisions.” –Competing on Analytics, HBR 2006 Economics will provide you with the tools to be an ‘analytics competitor.’

Market Research Predictive and explanatory modeling, trend forecasting, program evaluation Much of what I do comes directly from skills developed in ECON 306 and ECON 465 Means comparisons, linear regression, time series analysis, logistic regression

Economic Theory Modeling student choices Explain why students decide to apply, enroll, retain or drop out Incentives matter Opportunity costs What variables influence incentives and opportunity costs- incorporate them into the model

Economic Theory Utility Maximization: Utility is not directly observable If a student has 2 choices A vs B, and they choose B, we know that U(B) > U(A) This forms the basis for the ‘random utility model’

Logistic Regression The random utility model considers the utility of a choice to incorporate a random element. If the random component has the right distributional properties, the random utility model is consistent with logistic regression – Kennedy, 2003

Logistic Regression Models the probability that a choice is made. Ex: Y = 1 if choice is made Y = 0 otherwise

Applications Choosing a college Consumer behavior Voter Behavior

Conclusions Economics provides mathematically precise theories and empirically sound methods- a powerful background for problem solving in a complex society- Statistics Calculus